Control and observation of physical devices, equipment and processes by multiple users over computer networks

• US 7,467,187 B2
• Filed: 10/09/2002
• Issued: 12/16/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/02/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Western Digital Technologies Incorporated (Western Digital Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Western Digital Technologies Incorporated (Western Digital Corporation)
• Inventors: Hesselink, Lambertus, Rizal, Dharmarus, Bjornson, Eric S.
• Primary Examiner(s): WINDER, PATRICE L
• Application Number:
  US10/268,411
• Publication Number:
  US 20030051006A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,260 Days
• Field of Search: 709204-205, 709/208, 709/211
• US Class Current: 709/205
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 19/00 Teaching not covered by other main groups of this subclass teaching or practice apparatus for gun-aiming or gun-laying F41G3/26
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/025 for remote control or remote monitoring of applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/565 Conversion or adaptation of application format or content adding application control or application functional data H04L67/561
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/63 Routing a service request depending on the request content or context
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2187 Live feed
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/426 Internal components of the client ; Characteristics thereof H04N5/44 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4788 communicating with other users, e.g. chatting arrangements for providing for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms, to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1813; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/64322 IP
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/782 on tape
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/183 for receiving images from a single remote source

Abstract

A method and system for enabling multiple users from different physical locations to access, observe, control and manipulate physical processes and devices over a computer network such as the Internet is disclosed. A user may visually monitor the physical set up and state of an experiment or environment by receiving live video and data, as well as directly control instrumentation while receiving live feedback regarding the input commands. Measurement data may be collected into a database and computational analysis can be generated and displayed as a physical process is being performed. An online interactive laboratory notebook is also provided that manages items such as collected data, laboratory parameters, “to do” lists, personal notes, etc.

Claims

1. A system for remote physical process access and operation, comprising:

at least one laboratory server operatively coupled to at least one physical process and configured to monitor and control said at least one physical process;

at least one client process configured to provide control instructions to said at least one physical process and to receive and store data indicative of said at least one physical process;

a second server configured to receive physical process data indicative of said at least one physical process, the second server further configured to divide said physical process data into a plurality of segments, perform a discrete cosine transform on each of said plurality of segments to generate ideal transformed data, calculate a difference between said ideal transformed data and said data stored by said at least one client process, and send differential data indicative of said difference to said at least one client process; and

a connection server capable of maintaining connections with at least three components selected from a group defined by said at least one client process, said at least one laboratory server and said second server, said connection server configured to route said control instructions from said at least one client process to at least one of said at least one laboratory server and said at least one client process and to route said differential data from said second server to said at least one client process.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein said control instructions and said differential data are encoded into a plurality of packets for transmission via a computer network, each of said plurality of packets comprising an overhead section including source and destination identification information, and an instruction section including portions of at least one of said control instructions and said differential data.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein said connection server is configured to maintain network connections between said at least one client process and said at least one laboratory server, and between said at least one client process and said second server, and to route said plurality of packets therebetween.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein said destination identification information comprises a group identifier.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein said at least one client process comprises a plurality of client processes, each of said plurality of client processes operatively coupled to said connection server, said connection server capable of maintaining connections with each of said plurality of client processes and configured to route said control instructions from said plurality of client processes to said at least one laboratory server and to route said differential data from said second server to said plurality of client processes as point-to-multipoint transmissions.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein said connection server comprises a plurality of connection handlers configured to maintain network connections with said at least one laboratory server, said second server, and said plurality of client processes.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein said connection handlers are arranged in an array, with each connection handler configured to run in a separate thread for parallel processing.

8. The system of claim 6, wherein said connection server further comprises at least one connection controller configured to monitor and control said connection handlers and said network connections between said plurality of client processes, said second server, and said at least one laboratory server.

9. The system of claim 5, wherein said at least one laboratory server, said plurality of client processes and said connection server are configured to communicate via a common protocol comprising a plurality of packets, each of said plurality of packets comprising an overhead section including source and destination identification information, and an instruction section including said control instructions, said destination identification information comprising an all-clients-and-lab-server group identification for said point-to-multipoint data transmissions.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein said at least one physical process comprises a plurality of physical processes, each of said plurality of physical processes operatively coupled to said connection server via said at least one laboratory server.

11. The system of claim 1, further comprising a database server operatively coupled to said connection server and configured to store at least one of said data indicative of said at least one physical process and said control instructions, said connection server configured to route at least one of said data and said control instructions from said database server to at least one of said at least one client process and said at least one laboratory server.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein said physical process data comprises at least one image indicative of said at least one physical process, and said plurality of segments comprises a plurality of square portions of said at least one image.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the second server comprises a video server, the system further comprising:

a video camera positioned to receive said at least one image indicative of said at least one physical process, said video camera operatively coupled to said video sever and configured to transmit said at least one image to said second server.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein said connection server is configured to support full duplex point-to-point data transmission between said at least one client process and said at least one laboratory server.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein said connection server is configured to support full duplex point-to-multipoint data transmission between said at least one client process and said at least one laboratory server.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein said at least one laboratory server is implemented with multi-threaded software.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein said at least one laboratory server comprises a plurality of laboratory servers, each of said plurality of laboratory servers operatively coupled to said connection server, said connection server capable of maintaining connections with each of said plurality of laboratory servers and configured to route said control instructions from said at least one client process to said plurality of laboratory servers as point-to-multipoint transmissions.

18. The system of claim 1, wherein said at least one laboratory server comprises a plurality of laboratory servers, each of said plurality of laboratory servers operatively coupled to said connection server, said connection server capable of maintaining connections with each of said plurality of laboratory servers and configured to route said control instructions between said plurality of laboratory servers as point-to-multipoint transmissions.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein said at least one client process comprises a plurality of client processes, each of said plurality of client processes operatively coupled to said connection server, said connection server capable of maintaining connections with each of said plurality of client processes and configured to route at least one of said differential data and said control instructions between said plurality of client processes as point-to-multipoint transmissions.

20. The system of claim 1, wherein said at least one client process comprises a plurality of client processes, each of said plurality of client processes operatively coupled to said connection server, said connection server capable of maintaining connections with each of said plurality of client processes and configured to route said control instructions between said plurality of client processes as point-to-multipoint transmissions.

21. A method for remotely accessing and controlling at least one physical process, comprising:

establishing a network connection between a client process and a connection server, said client process configured to store data indicative of said at least one physical process;

establishing a network connection between a lab server and said connection server, said lab server operatively coupled to said at least one physical process;

establishing a network connection between a second server and said connection server, said second server configured to receive physical process data indicative of said at least one physical process;

dividing said physical process data into a plurality of segments;

performing a discrete cosine transform on each of said plurality of segments to generate ideal transformed data;

calculating a difference between said ideal transformed data and said data stored by said client process;

routing differential data indicative of said difference from said second server to said client process through said connection server; and

routing control instructions from said client processes to said lab server through said connection server.

22. The method of claim 21, further comprising:

carrying out a control operation with respect to said at least one physical process by said lab server according to said control instructions.

23. The method of claim 21, wherein said differential data and said control instructions are encoded into a plurality of packets for said routing, each of said plurality of packets comprising an overhead section including source and destination identification information, and an instruction section including portions of at least one of said control instructions and said differential data.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein said destination identification information comprises a group identifier.

25. The method of claim 21, wherein routing said control instructions is carried out according to a user request.

26. The method of claim 21, wherein routing said differential data comprises sending data associated with compressed video.

27. The method of claim 21, further comprising routing said data indicative of said at least one physical process to a database server from at least one of said lab servers and said client process, and storing said data in said database server.

28. The method of claim 27, further comprising routing said data stored in said database server from said database server to at least one of said client process and said lab server.